


Comfortable Silence

by MyrandaJo



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Ansem doesn’t deserve rights, Canon Compliant, Namine is best girl, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 21:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20198248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyrandaJo/pseuds/MyrandaJo
Summary: During the summer where Naminé works on recovering Sora’s memories, she and Riku have taken to sharing quiet moments away from DiZ. Naminé’s powers haven’t been working and the old man has gotten more impatient than ever. For once, today, Riku breaks the silence.Not a ship fic! Just an exploration on these two characters. But it could still certainly be interpreted that way.





	Comfortable Silence

Not for the first time in this seemingly never-ending year, Naminé was in a bit of a daze. She hadn’t made progress with Sora’s memories in what felt like months, and even though she was spending every waking moment searching for an answer, a cause for the effect, she was still coming up with nothing. Sooner or later, DiZ would find her lost in a moment like she was now, staring absently at Sora’s sleeping silhouette with unblinking eyes, and he would ask her again about the delay. She was a “waste of existence,” a “heartless witch” who would be disposed of if she couldn’t get back to doing the one thing she was here to do.

  
When the door did open, Naminé instinctively went to making herself look busy, her unfocused eyes looking through her half-finished drawings for what must have been the thousandth time. But when she dared to look up, she breathed an audible sigh of relief when it was Riku standing beside her. Riku, she could handle, Naminé thought to herself. Every once in awhile, he’d join her to look up at his friend, and the silence that they shared was a kind of odd comfort she’d gotten used to. When he came, it wasn’t to demand answers or dole out threats, or really to ask anything of her at all. It really went without saying, but all Riku wanted was to see Sora, to remind himself what all of this was for, sometimes just to say a few words to him before he went off on his way to someplace else. Naminé didn’t ask him questions either. She may be a witch, but she knew well enough how to return a kindness.

  
But something about today was different. Riku’s hair had grown substantially longer since all of this had started. The way his bangs hung carelessly over his tired eyes, one would think he’d aged half a decade in the past few months, but usually he’d try to hide it. Because of the abilities she was cursed with, Naminé couldn’t help but know there was a battle going on behind those eyes. She could see things about Sora and his friends that she had no business knowing, and even though it had been a long time since either of them had said the name, Ansem still hung in the air like a sickly kind of humidity. And today, well, today Riku wasn’t really putting on any kind of charade to hide that.

  
“You know... sometimes I feel like I made the wrong call. I wanted to be here for Sora when he woke up, but the more I see him up there, the more I think a few months of sleep sounds pretty good.”

  
“Riku...” Naminé said, her voice a little frail from disuse. “You made the right choice.”

  
“Yeah,” he said, and he kept staring. For a moment, Naminé thought they were going to slip back into the usual silence, and then “So... how does this all work anyway? It’s funny, I only just kind of realized I never really knew.”

  
“Right now, it doesn’t really work at all, I’m afraid.”

  
“Well, I’m sure it’s a lot of work stitching someone’s life back together. Maybe you’re just missing a step.” He looked at her now for the first time, a half smile on his face.

  
“It’s... not really like that. Before, I could close my eyes and my own thoughts would go away, and I could see... him. In a way, his memories and his heart were all on display at once, and if I wanted to,” she paused for a moment, remembering. “I could pick a moment in the chain to focus on, and I’d be able to see what connected it to everything else. There were memories that were important than others, and if I found one of those it was like finding a key.”

  
“That sounds like a lot to keep track of.”

  
“That’s why I have these,” she said, holding up her sketchbook. “You know, Sora’s memories were actually the first thing I saw, when I was... at the very beginning. I didn’t really know what it was I was looking at, and it took me a long time to understand who I was. When the organization found me, it was like they knew everything about me, and especially about him. They promised me they would tell me everything, help me get on my feet, but it was conditional. If I wanted their help, I had to figure out how to use this connection in a way that would help them. Instead of just looking, I’d have to rearrange and... erase.”

  
“Erase...”

  
“I’m sorry. I know you... didn’t really want to know about all this. I promise I’m trying to just explain what’s relevant but- It’s hard not to get into everything and-“

  
“Naminé, it’s okay. I’m not DiZ.”

  
“Right. I’m sorry.” She took a deep, steadying breath, looking back to the pod. “What I’m trying to say is it’s more of a mental thing. It’s like a series of pictures I can see, even when I don’t want to. When I changed Sora’s memories, all I was doing was finding the important pictures and unlinking them from everything else then replacing them with the pictures I made. When I first started fixing that, finding the old pictures was easy because... they were right where I left them. But now whenever I look for the ones that are left, it’s not like I can’t find them, it’s like they were never even there in the first place.”

  
“And you’re sure he can’t wake up without them?”

  
“Well... he might be able to, but I’m not sure he’d really be Sora anymore. Riku, the thing is, a lot of these memories are... they’re about Kairi.” Naminé watched as Riku’s eyes widened in an expression she couldn’t quite read. He recovered quickly and frowned, now looking at the drawing she held in her lap. Sora and Kairi sat together on a pier, watching the sunset together.

  
“I see. Well, I guess I’d better go out and find them for you then.”

  
“What?”

  
“I mean, how hard can it be? If his memories aren’t in his heart anymore, then they must be somewhere else. I’ll just have to go find them.”

  
“Riku... even if that were true, you can’t be expected to do that on your own? If you keep using the darkness to get around-“

  
“I’ll be fine. Besides, if I’m being honest, I’ve been getting kinda sick of that old man expecting YOU to do all this on your own. Sora, he’s both of our friend. So we’re gonna have to fix him together.”

  
She had to admit, hearing that caught her off guard for a moment. “But... you’re already putting in so much energy into holding off... you know. And, we don’t even know where to start looking, or if I didn’t erase his memories after all without meaning to, or...”

  
“We’re going to figure something out. I’ve been starting to keep an eye on the Organization anyway, and I bet they know something about this. I’ll start there. But I’ll be back soon, alright?” He started stepping away, reaching out an arm to form a corridor, a hole jammed into an otherwise white space. “And Naminé. This isn’t your fault, okay? No matter what anyone says.” And with one final step, he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all. And here I thought I wouldn’t be writing anymore fanfiction. I wrote this mostly because that year of working on Sora’s memories has always sort of mystified me! As well as Naminé’s powers. I used to not really like the idea of them being exclusively connected to Sora but when I was writing this I was kinda like.... now wait a minute..... YEAH.  
Anyway, I’m very out of practice with writing and this is my first time writing KH characters, so I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts if you’d like to share them! Thanks for reading!


End file.
